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narflet 's review for:
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Annual 2013
by Paddy Kempshall
I said to myself that after being disappointed with the films of LotR I wouldn't get caught up in the Hobbit hype machine. But I did, and so here is the first of all the tie-in books that I am obviously buying.
I can see how this would be quite a fun book for kids, but it also gives an insight in to the plot of the film and how Peter, Fran, and Phil have worked to create a character and identity for all of the 13 dwarves. This book was, however, created before the decision to change the planned 2 films into 3 and came out before there was time to change any of the content so the plot and characters cover some details that we now actually won't get until the 2nd film (The Desolation of Smaug). So that's actually a fun bonus.
The book has 9 pages of character profiles: a double page for Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin. Single pages for Elrond, Gollum, and Thranduil. The other 12 dwarves get 6 pages between them (2 to a page). There's also a nice map highlighting some of the places on their journey. The rest is 35 pages of activities, puzzles, games, and 'posters' (full page pictures) - including Bilbo and Gollum's riddles, the moon runes + key for you to decipher, and an answers page at the very back. The puzzles vary in degree of difficultly so would be fun for a range of ages, but what was interesting for me is that a lot of the quizzes also provide additional clues to characterisations or plot.
There are plenty of pictures throughout, some that hadn't been seen on the internet before hand, but they're mostly all just character shots - only a few show actual scenes from the film and they're nearly all shots that've been used in the trailer. A lot of the art work is also very heavily photoshopped (to make 'pretty'), a bit too much for my liking at times. Like, they've made it pretty, but then got a bit carried away and gone too far.
The most interesting parts, for me, were reading part of Bilbo's diary that has been made up for the film (perhaps we'll see it on screen?), it's very thoughtfully made, and Hobbit-y feeling; and reading the 12 dwarf profiles to see how they'd taken small details from the books and developed them in to full characters, and what character traits they'd given the ones who have no small details in the book. Interesting.
I can see how this would be quite a fun book for kids, but it also gives an insight in to the plot of the film and how Peter, Fran, and Phil have worked to create a character and identity for all of the 13 dwarves. This book was, however, created before the decision to change the planned 2 films into 3 and came out before there was time to change any of the content so the plot and characters cover some details that we now actually won't get until the 2nd film (The Desolation of Smaug). So that's actually a fun bonus.
The book has 9 pages of character profiles: a double page for Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin. Single pages for Elrond, Gollum, and Thranduil. The other 12 dwarves get 6 pages between them (2 to a page). There's also a nice map highlighting some of the places on their journey. The rest is 35 pages of activities, puzzles, games, and 'posters' (full page pictures) - including Bilbo and Gollum's riddles, the moon runes + key for you to decipher, and an answers page at the very back. The puzzles vary in degree of difficultly so would be fun for a range of ages, but what was interesting for me is that a lot of the quizzes also provide additional clues to characterisations or plot.
There are plenty of pictures throughout, some that hadn't been seen on the internet before hand, but they're mostly all just character shots - only a few show actual scenes from the film and they're nearly all shots that've been used in the trailer. A lot of the art work is also very heavily photoshopped (to make 'pretty'), a bit too much for my liking at times. Like, they've made it pretty, but then got a bit carried away and gone too far.
The most interesting parts, for me, were reading part of Bilbo's diary that has been made up for the film (perhaps we'll see it on screen?), it's very thoughtfully made, and Hobbit-y feeling; and reading the 12 dwarf profiles to see how they'd taken small details from the books and developed them in to full characters, and what character traits they'd given the ones who have no small details in the book. Interesting.